Photodiodes

Silicon-based photodiodes enable the detection of visible and near-infrared radiation. Fraunhofer IPMS offers customized development and manufacturing services of surface illuminated multi-detector solutions on chip level. MEMS structuring techniques enable application-specific surface topologies and detector arrays.

Long absorption zones enable high optical sensitivities even in the near infrared range (> 0.4 A/W at 700 nm to 900 nm) at low dark currents (typ. 5 nA/mm² at 125 °C and 2.5 V). Applications include optical position determination.

Fraunhofer IPMS is also researching new detection principles to realize sensors for the wavelength range between 1.2 and 2 micrometers with adaptable spectral characteristics. In the future, the optical sensitivity is expected to be around 50 mA/W, which means that applications in areas with high optical power densities can be addressed - such as in temperature measurement or laser detection - which were previously reserved for III/V detectors.